Numerous changes at the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) requires some degree of emotional intelligence (EI) to achieve any level of efficiency, competitiveness and success.
The primary purpose of this research is to empirically contribute to a comprehension of how a leader’s EI can be utilised to positively influence organisational behaviours during the transitional period.
The study adopted a positivist research approach, that is descriptive in nature. A survey was conducted by providing a structured questionnaire to a sample of 310 academics and support staff of the TVET college sector in the Free State Province of South Africa. Data analysis was based on a total of 188 questionnaires collected, giving a return rate of 61%. The structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis and interpretation was conducted using a component-based approach to establish the correlation between the items.
The SEM findings revealed that EI of Free State TVET college managers significantly affects all the dependent variables namely, organisational work commitment, employee job satisfaction, task-oriented behaviour, teamwork except staff morale. Emotional intelligence reflects a reasonable power of predictability toward all other variables except staff morale of the respondents.
To ensure sustained exceptional performance, recruitment strategy for managers must deliberately incorporate EI measurements at TVET colleges.
The study demonstrates empirical proof of the positive impact of a leader’s EI on organisational behaviours, thereby confirming that EI is an enabler of organisational work commitment, job satisfaction, task-oriented behaviour, teamwork, but not staff morale.
Organisations strive to maximise profit. However, they comprehend that efficiency and productivity are a pipe dream if the heads, hearts and hands of every staff member are not on deck. To realise this goal, leaders and managers are critical for motivation and inspiration of the subordinates. Russell (
Leaders’ emotional status impacts that of their employees. Thus, a positive attitude encourages enthusiasm and enables information sharing thereby leading to outstanding performance. Conversely, negative emotions on the part of the leader cause anxiety, anger and detachment, all of which impede the team’s success (Wisse, Rus, Keller, & Sleebos,
The TVET sector has been earmarked as a critical role-player within the South African economy, having changed from the manpower pre-democratic dispensation to Further Education and Training (FET), and ultimately, TVET post-democratic era. Its recent elevation from Basic Education to the Higher Education (HE) sector inspired hope, but equally instilled trepidation of its core mandate being diluted and muddled with those of the HE sector. Leadership change and ill-prepared students, with lack of commitment and work ethic drain staff’s energies as their efforts amounted to zero. A mandate of providing trade skills and technical education to drive the South African economy has never been so critically necessitous and ominous, with unemployment rate escalating at an alarming rate. Industrious bemoan a perennial mismatch between their expectations and the readiness level of HE graduates to join the world of work. Practical hands-on experience and skills underpin the mandate of the TVET sector of engendering a culture of job creators instead of job seekers. Contrary to other countries such as Germany, Singapore, Zimbabwe, and Thailand, the South African TVET sector is yet to command and pass an ‘appeal test’ amongst young people and make a much-needed impact on the socio-economic imperatives of the South African society. This pervasive state of affairs adversely affects the TVET workforce. This can only be ameliorated by a determined leadership to avoid uncertainty, despondency and chaos. It shows that every leader’s task is becoming ever more critical in directing and influencing the behaviour of their subordinates towards this crucial goal. Foltin and Keller (
Issah (
In examining the appropriateness of one’s leadership style and its impact, it is imperative to ask yourself whether your employees are motivated and engaged, or are they de-motivated and disengaged. It is generally accepted that the higher the level of leadership, the greater the number of employees impacted. Thus, the extent of these leaders’ EI becomes progressively imperative. The top executive governs the organisation’s ambiance which embraces its emotional status and perceived organisational climate. Hence, leaders exhibiting poor EI decrease employee morale and leads to high staff turnover (Qureshi, Ali, Raza, & Whitty,
The TVET sector underwent many changes in the recent past, which resulted in daunting demands and challenges on the resources and the staff. New management and the COVID-19 crisis are further compounding the situation, with instant expectations for the staff to master virtual or digital teaching and learning approaches overnight. This causes a demanding re-engineering and paradigm shift on both the management and the staff to stay energised and motivated to optimally and efficiently achieve organisational mission and goals. Generally, the pervasive culture of ‘them and us’ arguably still mirrors the current status quo at various TVET colleges under study and characterise the type of relations between college leaders and subordinates, hence this study.
A myriad of research studies reported that EI is ingrained in the aptitude measuring movement. For example, Sariolghalam, Noruzi and Rahimi (
Marked inspiration and drive is indicative of employee contentment, consequently, presenting industriousness, enterprising, and commitment towards achieving organisational success rather than personal goals (Tiwari,
A study by Cook (
This analysis is therefore intended to evaluate the structural relationships of these variables as indicated in the conceptual model in
Conceptual model.
The hypotheses as depicted in the research model were stated as follows:
The behaviour and style of leadership is likely to determine the level of motivation, commitment, morale and the performance of their subordinates. Emotional intelligence is a key to unlock this secret and, thus is of value to organisations because it provides the basis for creating and monitoring employees’ emotionally-based soft skills. This research strives to both eradicate possible hindrances to sound interpersonal relations, as well as to promote the consciousness of leaders’ EI and an ideal leadership style that can enhance traits such as collegiality, engagement and performance. It is also expected that this study will significantly inform Human Resource Management policies and practices for improving employer/employee relations across the TVET sector in South Africa, and globally.
Although a plethora of leadership theories are documented, in this article the two complementary leadership theories that we chose to anchor this study are : the
This article adopted a quantitative research approach, employing a survey which is descriptive in nature. With a cross-sectional as the most appropriate research design, Creswell (
A population included all four TVET college staff members equalling just over 968 in total, divided between teaching (439) and non-teaching (529) staff from these colleges spanning four regions of one Province of South Africa. Stratified random sampling was employed to draw participants from all management levels of these colleges. Data from the HR divisions of these colleges on organisational structure made stratified sampling possible. A sample of 310 was secured, which is slightly more than what is acceptable from the population between 1,000 and 1,300, which is supposed to be 297 (Sekaran,
The instrument used for data collection comprised a Likert rating scale consisting of ‘strongly agree = 5 to strongly disagree = 1’. Made up of demographic section (including gender, age, race, education level, work experience, and title/position) and attitudinal factors regarding EI Inventory developed by Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee (
A self-developed measuring instrument was used and four research assistants were dispatched at the four regional colleges of the TVET sector in the province of the Free State for the purpose of ensuring clarity for respondents during the data collection process. After permission was granted by each college management, consultation with the participants ensued. Consent, anonymity and confidentiality of the participants’ information and that of their colleges were guaranteed in the cover letter.
The structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was conducted using a component-based approach. This approach was adequate given the small sample size. Smart PLS.3 was the package used to conduct the analysis. Structural equation modelling represents a flexible and comprehensive methodology for representing, estimating, and testing a theoretical model with the objective of explaining as much of their variance as possible (Ramlall,
This part outlines and presents the statistical results of this article. It provides details of the demographics results of the respondents and other descriptive statistics.
This section contains a concise demographic information of the participants as well as the development of the SEM. The respondents’ profile consisted of 62% males and 38% females, with most (35%) of the participants being between 41 and 50 years of age, followed by 31–40 years (33%). Africans were in the majority, that is, 96%. Most (45%) of the participants had a degree, 34% had a diploma, 15% had a certificate or matric, whilst those without matric represented a 7%. The majority of respondents occupied positions within a lower management level (44%). Academics represented 27% whilst support staff were at 15%. About 49% had a work experience between 1 and 5, followed by those between 6 and 15 years at 31%.
Reliability refers to the degree to which the results/quality of a measurement of a phenomenon is being trustworthy or of performing well consistently (Taherdoost,
Components of emotional intelligence.
Component | Definition | Elements |
---|---|---|
Self-awareness | Ability to understand one’s moods, emotions, and drives as well as its effect on others | Self-confidence; |
Self-regulation | Ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses or moods; |
Trustworthiness and integrity; Comfort with ambiguity; Openness to change |
Self-motivation | Passion to work for reasons beyond money or status; |
Strong drive to achieve optimism, even in the face of failure; Organisational commitment |
Empathy | Ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people; |
Expertise in building and retaining talent; |
Social skill | Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks; |
Effectiveness in leading change persuasiveness; Expertise in building and leading teams |
Convergent validity refers to ‘the extent to which a set of items only measure one latent variable in the same direction’ (Hosany et al.,
Statistical evidence of reliability and convergent validity.
Constructs | Items | Factor loadings | Cronbach’s alpha | Composite reliability | Average variance extracted (AVE) | Final number of items and (initials) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Employee’s perceived organisational commitment | EPOC1 | 0.529 | 0.606 | 0.751 | 0.514 | 3 (5) | |
EPOC4 | 0.651 | ||||||
EPOC5 | 0.915 | ||||||
Employees job satisfaction | EJS1 | 0.815 | 0.843 | 0.876 | 0.586 | 5 (5) | |
EJS2 | 0.810 | ||||||
EJS3 | 0.744 | ||||||
EJS4 | 0.745 | ||||||
EJS5 | 0.707 | ||||||
Fostering task-oriented behaviour | FTOB1 | 0.807 | 0.858 | 0.896 | 0.633 | 5 (5) | |
FTOB2 | 0.665 | ||||||
FTOB3 | 0.801 | ||||||
FTOB4 | 0.834 | ||||||
FTOB5 | 0.858 | ||||||
Enhancement of teamwork | ETW1 | 0.887 | 0.838 | 0.884 | 0.611 | 5 (5) | |
ETW2 | 0.701 | ||||||
ETW3 | 0.855 | ||||||
ETW4 | 0.864 | ||||||
ETW5 | 0.546 | ||||||
Staff morale | SM1 | 0.857 | 0.887 | 0.875 | 0.585 | 5 (5) | |
SM2 | 0.825 | ||||||
SM3 | 0.718 | ||||||
SM4 | 0.716 | ||||||
SM5 | 0.696 | ||||||
Emotional intelligence | EI2 | 0.485 | 0.316 | 0.641 | 0.311 | 4 (7) | |
EI4R | 0.525 | ||||||
EI5R | 0.663 | ||||||
EI7 | 0.543 |
Indicates the significance of the factor at 99% confidence interval.
The results as indicated in
Fornell and Larcker (
Variable | Emotional intelligence | Perceived organisational commitment | Employees job satisfaction | Enhancement of teamwork | Fostering task-oriented behaviour | Staff morale |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Emotional intelligence | - | - | - | - | - | |
Employee’s perceived organisational commitment | 0.276 | - | - | - | - | |
Employee’s job satisfaction | 0.226 | 0.671 | - | - | - | |
Enhancement of teamwork | 0.219 | 0.566 | 0.735 | - | - | |
Fostering task-oriented behaviour | 0.196 | 0.564 | 0.759 | 0.653 | - | |
Staff morale | 0.165 | 0.390 | 0.568 | 0.582 | 0.620 |
Discriminant validity refers to the degree to which a latent variable or item discriminates from another latent variables (Taherdoost,
This part submits and covers the structural model analysis of statistical results. In terms of the results, the empirical model explains: 7.6% (
Structural model.
Standardised regression weights and hypothesis conclusion.
Variable | Beta value | Conclusion | |
---|---|---|---|
Emotional intelligence → Employee’s perceived organisational commitment | 0.276 | 0.007 | EI has a positive (β = 0.276) and significant ( |
Emotional intelligence → Employee’s job satisfaction | 0.226 | 0.014 | EI has a positive (β = 0.226) and significant ( |
Emotional intelligence → Enhancement of teamwork | 0.219 | 0.013 | EI has a positive (β = 0.219) and significant ( |
Emotional intelligence → Fostering task-oriented behaviour | 0.196 | 0.033 | EI has a positive (β = 0.196) and significant ( |
Emotional intelligence → Staff morale | 0.165 | 0.421 | EI has a positive (β = 0.165) and non-significant ( |
It stands to reason that a leader with a good heart (i.e. empathy) and rational head (i.e. staff engagement) is likely to inspire enviable performance (i.e. hands) especially during times of change which customarily precipitates uncertainty, anxiety, low morale and turnover intentions amongst staff poorly management. That said, a leader’s EI becomes key to unlocking and inspiring positive behavioural response if equipped to strike a good balance between head, heart and hands. From the result of this study, it is evident that the higher a manager/leader’s EI, the better the chances of enhancing individual’s work behaviours, resulting in improved satisfaction, commitment, performance and high morale. The results from the regression analysis in this study illuminated this inference where all constructs revealed significant positive relationship with manager/leader’s EI, except for staff morale. Qureshi et al. (
The findings presented from this study are applicable across the entire management levels of the TVET sector in South Africa. The management needs to be circumspect in their recruitment and selection of managers/leaders. Sustainable employee performance is inspired by high EI leaders because they exhibit strong interpersonal relationships, innovation and creativity as well as motivation for themselves and their subordinates. The Free State TVET top management needs to initiate actions that will develop an organisational culture conducive to employee loyalty, teamwork and improved performance. Volitional employee performance and efficiency is a factor of a leader/manager’s high EI and are critical factors for driving sustainable organisational success and competitive advantage.
This entire research study was conducted at four TVET colleges found in one province of South Africa. Therefore, it is not possible to generalise the findings to the entire TVET sector in the country. Additionally, the small sample size is another shortcoming. Conversely, the results paint a positive picture of the impact of managers/leaders’ EI on numerous work-related behaviour variables, excluding staff morale. Drawing from these findings and the in-depth literature review, the following tactical and strategic priorities are recommended for the Free State TVET sector to ameliorate and effect an impactful ‘human sensitive’ trajectory:
Ensure that the recruitment strategy ensures human capital development, especially pertaining to new managers’ values regarding the ‘human element’ as a catalyst to entrenching teamwork, collegiality and employee engagement.
The study advocates for EI amongst the criteria for recruitment and appointment of TVET college managers, and that it should be utilised to enhance organisational behaviours such as responsibility and team building in order to ensure job satisfaction for prospective new recruits in South African TVET college sector.
Establish and implement a wellness programme for the staff to serve as a resource or platform to deal with any personal, group and or organisational issues with the potential to impact on staff performance.
Craft a customised TVET workload model clearly aligning leader’s performance to those of subordinates pursuant to the organisation vision and goals.
Create a culture of collaboration and teamwork at the TVET college to ensure synergy and harmonious interpersonal relations.
For further research, the effects of TVET manager/leader’s EI on employee’s demographic variables such as the age, gender, work experience, and education level could be explored.
Behaviour results from emotions and perceptions, so EI is reflected in a manager/leader’s behaviour (Momeni,
The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.
S.M. conducted the literature review, performed data gathering, and prepared the first draft of the article. M.N. assisted with the overall aim of the study and refining of the article, results, and conclusions.
This research was approved by the Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa. Ethical clearance has been provided by the Faculty Research and Innovation Committee [03/05/17] in view of the CUT Research Ethics and Integrity Framework, 2016 with reference number [Management Sciences 0717].
Funding for this study was provided by the Central University of Technology (CUT), Free State.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors, and the publisher.